Thursday, June 12, 2014

The funds to support poor countries adapt to the effects of climate
change must not come from existing aid development budgets, United
Nations climate talks in Bonn, Germany, have been told.

A number
of developing countries have made important statements calling for
finance for climate change work to come on top of existing overseas
development aid budgets.

At the second and final week of
climate talks in Bonn, home of the UN climate change body, progress is
slow in coming up with draft negotiating text for the new climate
agreement that will come into force at the end of next year. However,
the renewed call for new and additional climate funds was a signal the
question of funding sources must not be forgotten, said Mattias
Söderberg, chair of the ACT Alliance climate change advisory group.

“Otherwise, we would end with a situation in which developing countries
end up paying the bill to adapt to climate change and having to clean
up from climate-related disasters themselves. Climate finance should be
additional to overseas development aid,” Söderberg said.

He was
pleased to see that innovative ideas to finance climate change
adaptation projects were back on the agenda. “Finance from public
sources will never be enough. As a development organisation working in
over 140 countries, we know that the need for finance is huge. It is
important to come up with new solutions that can generate sustainable
and predictable finance.”

A good example was a finance mechanism
related to shipping and aviation, two of the largest producers of
greenhouse gas emissions. Bangladesh and Zambia proposed bringing this
idea up again, a move ACT welcomes.

“We are happy that several
parties talk about the Green Climate Fund. Hopefully it will be filled
soon so that it can start to support important projects,” he said.

The fund was created two months ago and aims to raise US$100b by 2020
for developing countries to counter the negative effects of climate
change on their economies, culture and society. Developing countries
said yesterday they expect developed countries to have raised US$15b by
the end of November.